Today's delight of a project was changing a bath tub faucet hot/cold water supply. Sucker dripped all night last night. Drove me crazy.
Seems easy enough. Extract old cartridge, insert new cartridge. Done.
Nope. The force is NOT with me on this. In my experience, the old cartridges never want to come out. The rubber grommets tear on the way out getting stuck in the hot/cold water supply lines, so you have to fish those out. Then you go to lowes and they are out of the moen cartridge but have an offbrand cartridge that states it is compatible, but is not. Another trip to home depot produces the right cartridge, which tears the new rubber grommets as it is inserted. Trip #3 to home depot produces another cartridge, which I insert and it leaks worse than the original drip. Removing these things (even new ones rip the rubber grommets about 50% of the time. Each trip to the box stores is about $30 to $50 a piece. All this while the family is without water.
Frustrated and cussing like a sailor, As I readied to pull the third one out, removing it about 3mm from seating caused the seals to bind and it works like a champ. There is nothing securing the insert in, mind you, since pulling it out ever so slightly prevents the securing pin to fit, but screw that... but I ain't touching it. No way in hell.
I don't know what I am doing wrong. I sand the corrosion off the inner copper insert holder, and lubricate the assembly with soap before assembly.
I also put new rotors and pads on the front of the SC today. And stained the boards on a trailer. Guess which project took longest.
Mission accomplished, but there has got to be a better way (like- call a plumber)
